By Charlotte Morritt-Jacobs - (@morrittjacobs on Twitter)

“Invest In Tech” – Main Message In Economics Luncheon

Sep 28, 2016 | 5:00 PM

LETHBRIDGE – Diversifying business ventures and investing in innovation are just two suggestions from the “Food for Thought – Economic Trends & Industry Disruptions Luncheon” that took place Wednesday (Sept. 28) afternoon.

In the morning session four local entrepreneurs had the opportunity to make their pitch in front of Michael Hyatt, a Dragon on Next Gen Den and Technology Entrepreneur.

The afternoon lunch saw two dynamic speakers who provided their insight on how local entrepreneurs can advance and grow their business.

Vice President – Business Development Bank of Canada, Pierre Cleroux Gradon, forecast that Alberta will see positive growth in 2017.
According to Cleroux Gradon, oil markets will slowly re-balance thus increasing oil prices and investments, Fort McMurray will rebuild and the growth in U.S. consumers combine with the low Canadian dollar will stimulate exports in Canadian lumber and tourism.

While Cleroux Gradon warned the crowd that economic growth would not take place overnight, he also noted that the shrinking Canadian dollar will help some provinces.

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“There will be modest growth in Canada and it will vary across the country. Provinces with a strong manufacturing base will do well with high export demand.”

The discussion shifted with Michael Hyatt, who spoke towards reshaping business models and hiring strategies, and embracing the fast-paced future of smart computing and automation.

“In my view it is always better to be born tomorrow. Things are getting better; computing powers are doubling every 18 months and Siri is getting smarter and smarter.”

Hyatt said that sometimes it is easy for entrepreneur leaders to become discouraged with the elimination of jobs, but he encourages the public to see the potential for job creation within the tech sector.

“I want the audience to understand that the future is good, as long as they embrace change. In Lethbridge we can get involved in coding for autonomous driving and technological innovation. We cannot depend on oil/gas, manufacturing, protected jobs and government grants, we have to become a nation of technology.”

He also pointed out how each of Canada’s largest cities has strong start-up communities and that better businesses give employees more autonomy and purpose within a company.

Hyatt shared some of his empirically based predictions on how businesses need to prepare for the human race to live longer lives and how business will be impacted.

“A baby born today will be able to live till 110-120 years-of-age and that is going to continue to extend, because medicine is getting better and better. We will have gene-editing and nanobots. It will be interesting because what will we do when middle age is 75? It will have interesting implications and it will happen sooner than we think.”

Trevor Lewington, CEO Economic Development Lethbridge, told media that the purpose of the event was to inspire local businesses to increase their technological capabilities.

“People at Blockbuster were not stupid, they just did not see the next thing coming. You start thinking about all of the different technology companies in Lethbridge that could derail businesses and then you need to get businesses to think about how to get in front of it and the next big thing like Netflix and Uber.”

Lewington said that more events such as this will take place in the future with a special emphasis on technological connectivity.